User blogs

Two years ago, we investigated the suicide
of a 7-year-old Florida foster child five years after his death, to
find out whether officially recommended changes to the state's foster
care program had been implemented following the tragedy. Based on
records obtained from the Department of Children and Families (DCF)
spanning the five-year period after the child's suicide, we concluded
nothing had changed. After reviewing the DCF records, psychiatrist
and child advocate Dr. Peter Breggin warned then about the foster
program's ongoing and dangerous practice of psychotropic
polypharmacy: “Whenever you put children on multiple psychiatric
drugs you are creating an experiment that is doomed to do more harm
than good... We need to stop experimenting on America's children.”

We had hoped by
calling attention to the lack of real progress overhauling the Florida foster care program's over-reliance on pills to cure all ills,
further tragedies might be prevented. Mission failed.

Recently, a
14-year-old Florida foster child, prescribed a psychotropic cocktail
similar to the 7-year-old foster child, committed suicide in a nearly
identical manner, only this time streamed live on Facebook.

In 2009, 7-year-old
Gabriel Myers hanged himself in the bathroom of his Florida foster
home. Toxicology
detected amphetamine, fluoxetine and olanzapine in his system.
Medical records indicated psychiatrist Dr. Sohail Punjwani prescribed
young Gabriel 50mg of the ADHD drug Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine
dimesylate), and 25mg of the antidepressant and antipsychotic
combination drug Symbyax (fluoxetine, olanzapine). Although there
was was no doubt Gabriel died at his own hand, Broward Deputy Chief
Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cina did not rule his death a suicide,
stating: “It is unclear whether these drugs contributed to this
fatality or not.” Dr. Cina noted in his report that neither
Symbyax, nor one of its key ingredients olanzapine, also known by the
brand name Zyprexa, was approved for use in children; and that
“fluoxetine [Prozac] and olanzapine can increase the risk of
suicidal ideation in children taking this drug.”

It also came to
light that Gabriel was among Florida foster children being used as
guinea pigs for pharmaceutical clinical trials. After an
investigation into his clinical trial practices, the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) issued a warning
letter to Dr. Punjwani, citing violations including failure to
protect the rights, safety and welfare of human test subjects; doses
exceeding protocol-specified limits; and failure to follow clinical
trial plans. Through an executive order,
then DCF Secretary George Sheldon instituted a limited prohibition of
the shady practice of conducting drug experiments on Florida's foster
children.

A recent Canadian
study
found youth prescribed ADHD drugs were thirteen times more likely to
be prescribed antipsychotic medications, and almost four times more
likely to be prescribed antidepressant medications than children who
were not prescribed ADHD drugs. The study's authors argued that
children with ADHD have more psychiatric comordibities than children
without ADHD, omitting the exceedingly relevant fact that psychosis
and depression are labeled side effects of ADHD drugs. Clearly, the
possibility eluded the authors that the increased rates of psychosis
and depression observed may not be linked at all to so-called
comorbidities of ADHD, but rather to the drugs prescribed to treat
ADHD.

Indeed, the Vyvanse
label
warns: “Vyvanse at recommended doses may cause psychotic or manic
symptoms even in patients without prior history of psychotic symptoms
or mania.” According to the DSM-5, up to twenty-five percent of
all first episodes of psychosis are substance/medication-induced.
Likewise, the label for the stimulant drug also warns: “Fatigue and
depression usually follow the central nervous system stimulation.”

Research suggests
drug treatment of ADHD unleashes a domino effect, triggering more
psychiatric diagnoses, which in turn lead to risky polypharmacy. The
cascading reactions associated with drug treatment of ADHD are especially disturbing, considering many children have been
misdiagnosed with ADHD in the first place.

Which leads us to
the tragic case of Naika Venant, the 14-year-old Florida foster child
who recently hanged herself in the bathroom of her Florida foster home,
witnessed in real-time on Facebook Live. Medical records
from a medication management visit the month prior to her suicide
indicate psychiatrist Dr. Scott Segal increased Naika's doses of Vyvanse and Zoloft (sertraline) to
50mg each.

Like Gabriel, Naika
was prescribed 50mg of Vyvanse. Like Gabriel, Naika was also
prescribed an antidepressant. Like Gabriel, Naika also hanged
herself in the bathroom of a Florida foster home. Almost
inconceivably, the medical offices where Gabriel and Naika were
treated have the same street address, too. Which leads to an obvious
question: Was Naika involved at some point in a clinical drug trial,
like Gabriel?

Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS) records
indicate Shire, the manufacturer of Vyvanse, paid the Segal Institute
for Clinical Research over three hundred seventy thousand dollars
from 2013 to 2015. In response to a complaint
alleging Dr. Segal enrolled a subject with a diagnosis of bipolar
disorder in a schizophrenia study, the FDA previously inspected the site,
initially classifying the inspection in the field as requiring
voluntary corrective action, a classification subsequently amended at
headquarters based on evidence of a dual diagnosis later supplied by
Dr. Segal.

Even so,
the DCF incident report
in response to Naika's suicide does not reflect as favorably on the
doctor(s) who prescribed her drugs for ADHD and depression, going so far as to
question whether she even had ADHD in the first place, and noting the
cascading effect of such a diagnosis:

Lastly, there was a noted concern regarding possible inaccurate and
multiple diagnoses. Naika’s primary diagnosis consistently remained
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). An ADHD diagnosis
for a child who has suffered trauma, however, comes with its
challenges, including how often symptoms of trauma in young children
mimic those with ADHD. A psychological evaluation conducted with
Naika stated that there is much concern that her attention
problems are due to anxiety and trauma rather than ADHD
symptomatology and recommended further evaluation to clarify the
ADHD diagnosis. However, it does not appear that further evaluation
was conducted. In addition to the ADHD diagnosis, Major Depression,
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Disruptive Mood Dysregulation
Disorder were given by various treating mental health professionals
over the course of Naika’s life. However, limited documentation
within the assessments does not appear to support these diagnoses or
the medication prescribed
[emphasis added]. An additional consideration is the cascading
effect of a diagnosis, which drives the development of the treatment
plan.

With respect to
other suicides noted in its recent Vyvanse pediatric safety review,
the FDA seemed to trivialize fatal adverse event reports associated
with the drug, chalking them up to comorbidities and teen angst: “It
is difficult to perform a causality assessment of suicide-related
events and lisdexamfetamine from the postmarketing cases, because of
the comorbid conditions... and the prevalence of youth suicides.”
Readers familiar with our research
published on Mad in America will recognize this FDA Vyvanse pediatric
review as the same document the agency retroactively redacted to
cover up the homicide of an infant by a child prescribed the
stimulant – a day after Shire submitted a New Drug Application
(NDA) for a chewable formulation of the drug intended for young
children. Nothing to see here, move along.

Children are our
most precious resource, and foster kids are among the most vulnerable
of them to whom our society owes a special duty of care. As Dr.
Breggin pointed out: “These children need to be treasured and
protected, and to be given wrap-around loving care. They do not need
psychiatric drug interventions, which inflict more neglect and abuse
by suppressing their mental functions in order to make them more
manageable.”

If the FDA will not
fulfill its mandate to seriously investigate pediatric psychotropic fatalities and adequately warn the public of elevated polypharmacy risks, then
it's up to us as parents to spread the word ourselves.